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Spain's Defence Minister, Carme Chacon, resumed command with a flourish this week after six weeks' maternity leave, and announced a clean sweep of all the military top brass.
Without taking time to get to know the country's top generals personally, Chacon said she would remove Spain's most senior officer, General Felix Sanz, the defence chief of staff, in addition to the chiefs of all three armed forces.
Her action reportedly defies the advice of her socialist predecessor Jose Antonio Alonso, who urged her to keep Sanz in post, and the private opinion of the Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
She did not name their replacements.
Chacon, who became Spain's first female defence minister in March when seven months pregnant, plans to boost military operations abroad "both in peacekeeping missions and in war zones", she told the parliament's defence commission yesterday.
She proposes to lift restrictions on numbers of troops that can be deployed in such operations, currently limited to 3000, and increase total troop numbers from 126,000 to 130,000.
Her recommendations must be approved by Parliament.
She promised to establish defence universities, and creches, care homes and hospitals for military families. She also signalled an improvement in soldiers' rights and conditions, promising to supply better equipment and to establish equality between male and female troops.
- INDEPENDENT
